So...how did you end up in prison?

Hello everyone!  Tonight's topic is one that always makes me laugh and that is answering the follow-up questions you get when you tell people you are a prison librarian.  I have covered this topic before in the post about fun with telling people you want to prison, and also how to make polite conversation about prison, but people seldom read blogs word for word, or if they do they might forget, so here it is again. :-)

Probably the most common question I get is: "So....how did you end up in prison?"  The truth is, I ended up in prison completely by accident and it was all my best librarian friend's fault because she sent me the job link and said, "I think you should apply!  I see this job open all the time!"  Ha, that should have been our first sign!  Anyway... I am glad I did end up there though because everything happens for a reason, and if I didn't go to prison I probably would have just kept bartending and wishing I had a job in my field, and I wouldn't have gotten this amazing life-changing experience and I would not have had enough character because when I was little and I didn't want to do something my mom would tell me I should do it anyway because "It builds character."  When I got older I told her I had enough character, thankyouverymuch, but now that I am even older, I am finally at the age where I realize that my mom was right. :-)

The second most common question I get is, "Are you scared?" followed closely by, "Do you have a gun?"  The answer to both is no.  No, I am not scared because I have built a good rapport with staff and patrons and I have laid down the law enough times that people know I am not one of those staff that can be manipulated.  And no, I don't have a gun because they are not allowed, and that would be so terrible if an inmate was able to take my gun away and shoot me with it.  After switching to professional dress, I don't even carry a radio or OC anymore, and I am ok with that.

The next most popular question is, "Do you watch Orange is the New Black?"  Also, no.  I read the book and thought it was interesting, and I chose to ignore the part where Piper gives detailed instructions about how to steal chicken from the chow hall because I believe in intellectual freedom a little bit more than the restrictive censorship rules, but I watched one and a half episodes on Netflix and decided to stop because I didn't like the way staff was portrayed in the series.  To be fair, one of the wardens I know actually met her and said the same thing about the series I did and he said she apologized and explained that it was the show producers making it like that for dramatic effect.  The one thing I do like about that show though is that it humanizes the prison population, and reminds people on the outside that offenders are actually so much more than just their crime or their DOC number.

Whenever I meet non-prison librarians, they will ask what our collection looks like.  Many people think offenders have different reading habits and are very surprised when they hear that prison library patrons' reading tastes are the same as yours and mine.  We need to give them the opportunity to read for themselves, because if we censor all the things, how are they going to learn to make decisions for themselves about what is good for them?  People naturally want to do what other people tell them they can't, so if a prison bans Robert Greene or Laurell K. Hamilton because they don't like the "unsavory" content, they are actually not doing their offenders any favors.

Until next time!

This prison's gone to the cats and dogs!

Greetings, loyal followers!  Today, the topic is everyone's favorite thing: cute animals!  Many prisons use animals for therapy and as a way of teaching offenders a useful skill to ensure a positive re-entry.  My prison has a dog program (as you may remember from the story about the dog we were going to hire to help with our weeding haha) and my HB and I have decided that our next dog will definitely come from prison.  The patrons have really been hitting up Mintern because they think she needs a dog too haha.

Here are some websites, in case you are interested in getting a prison dog too:

Prison Pet Partnership- Washington. Provides service dogs for people with disabilities, grooming and boarding and Parolled Pets who didn't quite make it as a service dog but are still in need of a good home.  Also they have cats too!

Dawgs in Prison-Florida.  8 week training sessions to get rescued dogs ready for their forever home.

4 Paws for Ability- Ohio.  Trains assistance dogs for children worldwide.

America's Vet Dogs- Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, and Florida.  Train dogs to work with America's wounded veterans.  Few things pull at my heartstrings more than dogs who help wounded veterans.  

Colorado Cell Dogs- Colorado.  Prison trained service animals and pets.  

Until next time! 

New Maintenance record!

Hello loyal readers!  I hope this recent holiday found you all stuffed with turkey and enjoying football and your families, and if that's not how you celebrate then I hope whatever you did brought you great joy!

I am happy to report that the library has finally been painted!  And only seven months after I put in the work order!  Now, you may read that and think seven months?  Lady, you are loco!  But please note, future prison librarians, things in prison do not move fast at all.  Remember how I told you we still have Microsoft office 2003?  Yeah, 7 months is like the speed of light around here.

Although, to be fair, the maintenance guys are awesome, and all my other tickets get processed really fast.  Painting the library is hard work because you have to get lots of paint and move tons of books so they don't get paint splatter everywhere.  And they did an amazing job.  Mintern calls it "Buttercream."  I am going to call it "Ivory Castle."  Ha!

We are still working on an accent wall.  For some reason they just laugh hysterically when I tell them it needs to be purple...

Until next time!

Prison in the News

Hello there readers! I was just perusing Buzzfeed and I came across this article about the tablets that have popped up in many facilities across the nation:

Apps For Inmates
http://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/reforming-prison-education-by-giving-ipads-to-inmates?utm_term=.eanamOo67n

While the article does make good points about teaching offenders about technology, I would like to add a side note that 3.5 seconds after they were introduced at one of our facilities, some staff members had smuggled in micro SD cards full of porn. *sigh*

Until next time!

Team Library just keeps finding pills!

Hello readers!  Do you remember when Team Library found pills in the fiber pills bottle during a shakedown, and when Mintern found the pill she thought was a Skittle in the hallway?  Well I found another pill the other day, so we could practically have a library pharmacy if we didn't take them all to the clinic!

The other day I was walking into the library and my eye was admiring our fancy new furniture when my brain sent off the warning signal that something wasn't right with the scene.  I stopped for a half second and realized what it was: A PILL!  There was small, round, white pill that was sitting under the chair, like it had fallen out of someone's pocket while they were enjoying the comfort you can't find anywhere except the library.

I picked it up in a glove because this drill becomes rote after a while and I wrote my incident report and took it to the clinic.  The nurse identified it as Wellbutrin, which is a prescription anti-depressant that should have been swallowed in Med Line, but instead was smuggled out somehow and was probably bartered for stolen library materials....but I digress.  My ears heard "Wellbutrin," but my brain heard "Ibuprofin," (the same active ingredient in Advil) and so I told the nurse she could just throw it away.  As luck would have it, the Shift Commander was standing right next to me and she interrupted the exchange with, "OR YOU COULD HAVE THE SHIFT COMMANDER TAKE A PICTURE OF IT TO SUBMIT WITH YOUR REPORT LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO!" but she said it with a smile so I didn't take any offense.  It just so happened that she had her new work cell phone there with a camera so she snapped a quick photo and I didn't even have to go to the Evidence Room.  Problem solved, and relatively quickly too!

Until next time!

Prison Laugh o' the Day, but then also some thoughts

Patron overheard talking to her friend in the library:
"Oh no, unlike everyone else in here, I am actually guilty..."

That is one of the stereotypes of prison-that everyone inside thinks they are not guilty and are there because of The Man, or whatever.  When I first heard this patron say that, I laughed to myself but then it made me reflect on what I have observed during my six years behind the walls.  Many of my patrons are in prison because of substance abuse.  Now, I am not a mental health professional, but I have spent many hours observing and interacting with my patrons on a professionally personal level (i.e. they feel comfortable enough with me to let their guard down and share things and I direct them to library resources to help them with their information needs related to what they want to work on at the time) and I see lots of patterns.

In my opinion, substance abuse is self-medicating the deeper problem of people having pain in their lives that they find it difficult to overcome.  Working in prison has made me realize how extremely blessed I am to have come from a stable and loving home, and even though my parents divorced when I was young, they were mature enough to not let their problems bleed over into my life and they were both involved with raising me and I feel like I turned out pretty good.  However, many of my patrons had parents who abused them, took drugs in front of them when they were kids, and/or were in prison themselves, among many other things.  It's easy to sit up on a high horse and judge people who have fallen so far down that they hit rock bottom and kept digging, but how can you really know that if you had been faced with the same situations you wouldn't have turned out the same way?

One of the saddest stories I heard about one of my patrons was the girl who was 22 years old, in prison for many years, and her mom used to sell her to men to rape for drug money.  If that wasn't bad enough, she saw her brother murdered in front of her in their living room.  When I first met her, she was one of the most disrespectful people I had ever encountered and I could tell she was full of hate.  She spent more time locked up in segregation than she did in the library for the first couple years I knew her.  But then, things began to change, and she would say hello back when I said hi in the yard.  She started coming to the library more, and then one day she was showing the library clerks how to make 3D origami stars.  Stories like that really underscore the notion that you should be kind to everyone because you don't know the personal battles that people are fighting.

One of the favorite lines that the patrons say is "Oh, staff.  They are just like us, the only difference is, they haven't been caught yet."  Unfortunately, that is sometimes true.  When I first started I had an officer friend who was awesome, and then one day she wasn't at work anymore.  Turned out, she had a hot UA, or in laymen's terms, she had to take a drug test and failed.  It's really hard to maintain any credibility when you tell people not to do something and then turn around and get caught doing the same thing.

Until next time!

In memoriam

Greetings readers,
It's your wayward neighborhood prison librarian here again. You know how one day you're working on something and then get distracted with other things and then all of a sudden it's three months later? Apologies. And also sorry if the title of this blog caused any concern- Mintern and I are fine but we have some sad news to report.

Mr. Dr. Street Thug Hustler, whom you may remember from previous blog entries, has gone to that Great 'hood in the Sky. One day Mintern and I noticed that we hadn't seen him during deliveries for a while so we looked him up and it turned out that it was because he had passed away a few weeks prior. Apparently he had been taken to the hospital for some routine procedures but when the staff brought him a sandwich he got upset and told them "I'm not going to eat this!!" Thinking nothing of it, they stepped out of his room for a bit and when they came back he was dead.

Now, dear readers, you may feel a tinge of sadness for Mr. Dr. Street Thug Hustler but do not fret! He was NOT going to eat that sandwich and he didn't, which showed real commitment to his convictions right to the very end.

Until next time!

Prison Laugh o' the Day

Patron: "Yeah, I need to know where it's written that I can't run with a toothbrush in my mouth!"

Me: "Um, that's more of a common sense rule..."

Wow, what a day...

Greetings, dear readers!  It's your friendly neighborhood prison librarian here with another story from the trenches.

Today I witnessed my first use of force- up close.  My supervisor, colleagues, and I were having our weekly meeting when we heard a commotion over the radio.  Everyone looked around with raised eyebrows as we awaited more information.  Seconds later, the call came over the radio "WE NEED FIRST RESPONDERS TO UPPER PROGRAMS!"

Because there are some officers on my team, and because when an incident is happening in your area, you respond no matter who you are, we all went running out of the library to assist.  We heard the screaming all the way at the other end of the hallway* which made us run even faster.  When we got to the west stairwell, an offender was in a wheelchair screaming "I'M CONFUSED!!!  I'M SO CONFUSED!!!" as other staff were trying to calm her down.  Rather than calming down though, she just kept escalating and when one of the staff told her that they were going to restrain her with handcuffs she attempted to stand up from her wheel chair and started fighting.

Now, when an offender refuses your verbal direction, you have some options but you need to get them back under control as soon as possible.  Hopefully you all will go through training (we go through a pressure point control tactics training class) so that you don't get hurt.  As soon as the offender stood up, 6 staff engaged her to get her on the ground.  I was not close enough to see if they were using any of the pressure points, but she was definitely not making it easy for them to get the cuffs on her.  Once she was on the ground with her hands behind her back, she started spitting at the staff and banging her head on the cement floor.  Despite repeated orders to stop banging her head and calm down, all she did was bang harder and yell expletives at the staff.

Once she was handcuffed, they attempted to put leg restraints on her.  She was not having it though and some of the staff almost got a boot to the face.  She was finally restrained with handcuffs, put in an escort chair (a chair with straps and cutouts for hands that are handcuffed behind the person's back) and outfitted with a spit mask and taken off to segregation.  As we debriefed with each other, it was discovered that she had been let up the elevator despite the fact that it was not scheduled movement and her appointment was not for 30 more minutes.  When the teacher who intercepted her asked her where she was going and then informed her that the other teacher she was there to see was not even in the building at the moment, she absolutely lost it.  Now, while this is not "normal" behavior for most people, this offender is a 4 out of 5 on the mental health needs scale, which means she has severe mental health issues.

As scary as this situation may sound, I was thankful that there were so many staff around to handle the situation.  This same thing could happen in a public library (mental health problems are not limited to prison library patrons) but in that setting, there are not responders 3 seconds away.  However, this could just as easily have happened in my library.  Sometimes people are not happy when their hold expires, or one of their books is missing or damaged and they have to pay for it.  I highly recommend playing the what-if game with this kind of situation, that way if it does happen you at least have a plan for how to deal with it.  This is also an important reminder that rules are there for a reason, and if someone is there unauthorized, they should NOT be allowed to go into the area.  There have been many incidents of offenders getting into places where they shouldn't be and staff getting taken hostage and hurt.  As much as we try and model a public library, it is still prison and there are still dangerous people there.  Library service is important, but personal safety is paramount.

Until next time.

*To give you an idea of how long the hallway is, I had Mintern measure it with her Fitbit and it took approximately 250 steps to get from one end to the other.  It's a pretty long hallway.

An unfortunate thing happened on the way to the library...

Good evening, dear readers!

As you can tell from the post title, an unfortunate thing happened on the way to the library the other day for one of my clerks.  It was time for our afternoon sessions and it had been a fairly normal day.  However, after movement was called for the library, Mintern and I heard a commotion on the radio.  We didn't catch what was happening, other than they needed "first responders" to the west stairs.  Since neither Mintern nor I are designated first responders and we had a few patrons and clerks arrive in the library already, protocol states that we remain in place and manage our offenders in our area, rather than running out to be the hero in an unknown situation.*

We knew it was not going to be good when an overhead announcement was made closing the yard and locking everyone down.  This usually happens when there is a fight or other significant disturbance, so we had more of an idea what was going on.  We also saw our officer colleague running down the hallway to assist so we knew whatever was going on was urgent, especially because she is pregnant but in prison, being pregnant is not an excuse to not respond if your help is needed.

While Mintern and I waited in the library and helped our patrons and clerks who had made it prior to the incident, we speculated on what the cause might be.  We were both in agreement that it was probably involving someone who was coming to the library...  We weren't locked down for too long, probably about 10-15 minutes or so, and when everything was finally back under control, we learned the reason for all the drama.

Our missing clerks arrived, white-faced and wide-eyed.  It turns out that one of our clerks had been attacked by her on-again, off-again girlfriend in the stairwell while coming to the library for work.  Apparently, this clerk was walking with one of her friends, and the girlfriend became super jealous and started attacking our clerk.  She bit her hand so hard that she broke the skin and it was bleeding.  Then, when she had delivered the beat-down to our clerk, she ran after the friend and beat her up too.  I could tell it stressed our clerks out because they were very quite when normally they are happy to come to work, and one made the comment, "Ugh, skin on skin punching is NOT something I ever want to hear again!"  They reported that our clerk was not fighting back (in prison, if you fight back when you are attacked, you are liable to get a fighting write-up as well) and that they all got sprayed with OC because the officer who deployed it did it from a bit of a further range than is recommended.

All three of the offenders were taken to Segregation (in prison terms, they were RFP'd or "Removed from Population") in order to give them some cooling off time and also to give staff time to sort out what happened.  I haven't been back to work since then due to vacation and training, so I don't know what has happened, or if we can expect that clerk to return to work.  Generally, if they don't get a write-up we will retain them, especially in this situation because this clerk has come so far with regards to her personality since she started working there.  When she first started, she would not work at the Circ desk, and basically just wanted to shelve books and not talk to patrons.  Now, she makes awesome displays and actually engages patrons and even staff and provides really good reader's advisory services for Urban Fiction and Gay and Lesbian Fiction.

Unfortunately, incidents like this serve as a harsh reminder of the environment in which the prison library exists.  Don't let this scare you away, readers, but rather just let it be a lesson and a head's up that sometimes these things happen.  It could have been a lot worse--the girlfriend could have had a weapon, or the attack could have happened in the library.  I am interested to see what the result of the investigation is when I get back tomorrow, and I will keep you all informed.

Until next time!


*Note: when I was in a uniform and carried OC, I probably would have gone, but being in professional dress with no defense tactics other than what I learned at PPCT, I made the decision to stay in the library.  This is a situation you may come across in your prison librarian careers.  I highly suggest playing the "What IF..." game so that way if an emergency arises, you are not caught in the paralysis of indecision.  For example-what would you do if you noticed a scuffle between a Mental Health staff member who has an office directly across from the library and an offender?  Would you A.) Run over there and start throwing down; B.) Call for help on the radio or using the duress alarm and watch the situation from the safety of your library; or C.) Call for help with the radio or duress alarm, tell your offenders to sit down and lock down and go over to help your fellow staff member?  These are the things you need to think about.

I Still Can't Make This Stuff Up!!

Greetings readers! Some of you might remember the post about how I can't make stuff up in prison. (Refresh your memory here:  I Can't Make This Stuff Up)

Well today I had a conversation with this patron about three more missing items for which she was charged. Essentially the jist of the conversation was her saying I shouldn't have charged her because she turned in those books and why would she keep them if she didn't want to pay for them and me disagreeing because I got something back in the mail from her mom THAT HAD BEEN STOLEN FROM THE LIBRARY.

The best part of the conversation?

Patron: "Oh yeah, and my mom wants that book back because she paid for it!"

*facepalm*

"Why do you hate democracy?"

Is what I wanted to ask at the meeting today where we decided if people can have their mail. One of the hallmarks of a democratic society is the free exchange of ideas and one of the missions of prison is to get these people in our care ready to return to said democratic society. Unfortunately, some people let their own feelings get in the way of the free exchange of ideas, but because they do it in the name of security, they get their way.

It's a lot like this whole fiasco with the movie The Interview that has been censored because of "threats to national security."  Throw out some magic words and all of a sudden people are willing to subvert the first amendment.

I don't even know what to do anymore. Ethically, libraries are supposed to fight for the freedom of expression, the freedom of information and against censorship. The Prisoner's Right to Read even says "That material contains unpopular views or even repugnant content does not provide justification for censorship." Yes, the Nazis did terrible things, but just because it makes you think there is only one reason for having materials about their history doesn't mean that everyone else thinks that. But when I voice my opinion, nobody else is with me and I am consistently overruled. What can I do? Is intellectual freedom worth my job?

Sometimes, future prison librarians, you have to make decisions like that. Can you be a librarian who is an intellectual freedom fighter in an environment that does everything it can to quash free expression? Can you stand for professional best practices when people personally attack you? Can you censor an item when your direct supervisor says to do it or lose your job?

Being a prison librarian is a very romantic notion: you get to serve all these underserved people and you will make a difference every day. Oftentimes that is true, but there's also another frustrating and stressful side to it that you should consider before you enter into this branch of librarianship.

Until next time.

Interesting prison article

Just came across this on Buzzfeed. Not my prison but the cement blocks are the same no matter where you go.

A Heartbreaking Look Into The Battered Women Of Rikers Island http://bzfd.it/1qnXtjN

Well the good news is: nobody hates you!

We used to have a clerk who, every time something bad happened, would always explain it was because "They hate you." It was kind of hilarious because she was this soft-spoken young clerk whom you would never expect to say anything like that. I actually bought a book called Somebody Up There Hates You just because it made me think of that and I laugh every time.

Anyway, a couple weeks ago one of our clerks had the book Doctor Sleep on hold but she didn't want to check it out yet. Three days later (which was still within her allotted time frame) she went to check it out and the book had mysteriously disappeared. Such occurrences are not unknown in the prison library as sometimes no matter how much you hammer into them at the clerk meetings that ethics are important, they will still use the library as a way to get back at their enemies. I chalked it up to the latest clerk vendetta and told her she would stay #1 on the hold list until it reappeared.

Well fast-forward to Friday when I finally had time to do some cataloging and lo and behold what did I find on the cataloging cart? Doctor Sleep! Huh. Imagine that! We were adding another copy and I didn't get a chance to print labels right away but someone probably wanted to check out the first copy so we had to approve it in the system which triggered the hold even though the book was not yet ready.

When I broke the good news to this clerk today ("Hey good news! Nobody hates you because your book is right here!") She swore up and down that she had seen that book actually on the hold shelf so she didn't understand how it could have gotten in the office. Now, loyal readers, there is always an explanation for anything that happens in the library and it is one of three things:

A. The clerk or patron has had their brain addled by drugs and their memory is not that great. (Side note A1- they could also be remembering something from a parallel universe as explained in this Buzzfeed article.)

B. Another clerk has it out for them and is pulling shenanigans.

or

C. The Library Ghost

Until next time!

Prison Librarians: helping people without all that pesky "technology"

Greetings readers! Today I was at a conference and we were listening to a presentation that featured digital initiatives and my colleague leaned over and asked me, "Are you sad that you are missing out on all that?"

I thought about it for a little bit because she was asking in all seriousness and then I replied, "No, because still I get to help people and that's what I really love to do." As a prison librarian, you will never be on the cutting-edge of technology. You will be lucky if you have Microsoft Office 2010. But this job is so much more about helping the people in-house that you really don't have time to wish for technology because you are too busy finding information so they can create a plan to be successful when they do get out, since 97% of them will one day.

Now don't get me wrong, I think digital initiatives and technology in the library are wonderful and I think prison really does people a disservice by locking them up for decades and then expecting them to do well in a fast-paced world that relies heavily on technology. I can't even tell you how many of my patrons avoid the OPAC because they have never used a computer mouse before. None of our patrons have legal* access to the internet. And don't even THINK of getting a 3D printer. I had to fight administration because they wanted to ban an article in Popular Science that said "Yes, people can make guns with 3D printers." It didn't have the code or anything. They just didn't want them to even THINK about it. (Side note- that's like the local school district trying to ban the teaching of history that includes stories of civil disobedience. Because if you don't tell kids about it they will never even think to do it? O_o)

Anyway, I'm happy to be at the conference for the next two days. I love being able to get together with like-minded people who are awesome and remind myself why I chose this field.

Until next time!

*The only way people get on the internet in prison is by having a cell phone smuggled in with internet service. One of my old clerks got into huge trouble one time because he had taken a selfie outside the prison gym wearing his prison greens and made it his MySpace profile pic but didn't think to make his account private. Yeah, the Intel officers saw that quickly and sent him down to the supermax before you could say "hashtag."

Update

Whew this past month has been rough. We finally got the approval to hire our vacant-for-over-a-year position, only to have it wrenched away at the last minute. Now, I am down another staff member because Minion #2 got a new job doing ILL at an academic library. Same pay and much less stress...can I get one too? Haha. Mintern also got a fabulous new position at a public library so it's just me and Minion #1 who has been reassigned full time to another facility so really it's just me. Allllllll byyyyyy myyyyyyseeeeellllfffffff! Again.

So, sorry for the long dry spell. I haven't been able to frame it in a funny way since I am too frustrated. But, I am realigning my outlook to be more positive so next week I will have some funny stories for sure. Happy Friday!

I Can't Make This Stuff Up

Today the Mail Room messaged me and asked if I was expecting an offender's mom to be sending us one of our books back called Will I Ever be Good Enough?  Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers. I remembered charging the offender for it a while back so I said I would take it and went down to get it, expecting some sort of apology on behalf of the offender when the mother realized that her daughter had stolen the book.

When I got the package back to the library, I noticed the mailing label was weird, and was actually an envelope addressed to her daughter rather than the library.  I cut it off the package and inside was a whole long letter yelling at the daughter about how she needs to get her s*** together and she (the mom) is not going to buy her $50 worth of food because her daughter is not going to be in prison that long, and then it ended with: "And here's the book you probably owe the library for...stop blaming everyone else for your problems. Love, Mom."

It's ironic on so many levels, and always interesting to get a glimpse into the outside lives of our patrons. 

Until next time!

Liberry Lady and the Case of the Missing Chit

Good evening, dear readers!

Have you ever felt that everyone around you at work has lost their everloving minds?  No?  Well then you my friend are either unemployed or very lucky haha.  For the rest of us, here is a story that will make you *facepalm* all the way through your head.

On Thursday I was leaving work and turning in all of my equipment, happy to be on my merry way on a fine Friday Eve, but little did I know that was not to be.  Now, a little background before we get into the meat of this story for those of you who have not yet worked in a prison.  When one becomes a prison employee, one is issued a variety of casino-chip like metal circles called "chits."  These chits are made of metal but are sometimes rectangle-shaped, so maybe not everyone feels like they have won the slot machine when they turn in their equipment at the end of the day, I don't know, I guess it just depends on who makes them for you.

Anyway, I have pretty good attention to detail being a librarian, and I also had it ground into my brain in BT that you NEVER EVER EVER UNDER THE PENALTY OF SERIOUS BODILY INJURY forget or lose your chits.  We were made to believe that, should one forget to bring their chits to work one day, or misplace a chit, tons of terrible things would happen, not the least of which would be the inability to get your necessary equipment that day.  Needless to say, I am very protective of my two golden and one red chit and I was proud of the fact that I worked in prison for 5 years and 4 months and still had my original issue chits.

When I opened up the trap door to receive my chits that I had exchanged for my keys, radio, and OC, I was dismayed to see that the red one just looked...different.  It was much shinier than I was used to, and when I turned it over to examine the engraved name on the front I was shocked to see a name that wasn't mine.

"Excuse me," I said to Master Control staff, "but this is not my chit."  They came to the window and I gave it back to them because sometimes it happens where they just accidentally grab the wrong one.  However, upon further examination of the OC holder bin, it was discovered that my chit WAS NOT THERE AT ALL.  After a terse exchange with the Sergeant, it was determined that I should hold the incorrect chit "hostage" because some staff member (Day Shift, according to Swing Shift, naturally, because they all hate each other) gave this person my chit and the person with my chit clearly does not have as good of attention to detail as me so they didn't wonder why their formerly shiny red OC chit was suddenly beat up and not nearly as gleaming.  Of course, this person had Friday/Saturday as their weekend so there was going to be no solution to this problem until Monday.

Well fast-forward to today and whadoyaknow but my chit was still MIA.  I headed up to the library with a radio and keys and a fervent hope that today would not be the day where shenanigans went down in the library and I would need to issue my first burst of OC to a misbehaving offender.  I opened my email to find a response to my request that the person with my chit please bring it to the library on Monday that said they had given it to Master Control yesterday.  Ok, fine, I thought, I will call them back and let them know that it should be there.  Unfortunately, Master Control staff still had no idea where my wayward chit had gone, (because Swing Shift re-lost it, according to Day Shift, naturally, because they all hate each other) so I was still out of luck.  AND, not only did I not have MY chit, this staff member was "unable to leave the kitchen due to his responsibility of monitoring offenders" so I had to go out of MY way to give him back HIS chit.  *sigh*  People...

Now, future prison librarians, when equipment is lost or broken, a report must be written before anything can be fixed or replaced.  So I wrote my report and made sure to make it clear that this was everyone's fault but mine, and got a response from the locksmith that I was, as always, perfect and would have a new chit by tomorrow.  As I was leaving today and grumbling to the lobby officer that people really need to pay attention to things when they work in prison, he made an optimistic guess that it would turn up as soon as I got my new one.  This gave me pause and shifted my perspective because as soon as he said that I realized that this seeming inconvenience might actually turn into a windfall of OC chits which would mean that instead of just one can of OC, I could potentially have TWO--ONE ON EACH HIP!  Ha, take THAT, potential shenanigizers!

Until next time!

On the Issue of Personal Hygiene

Greetings, loyal readers! It's your friendly neighborhood prison librarian back with an important PSA about personal hygiene in prison and where it is and is not ok to take care of your personal needs with regard to your cleanliness.

Yesterday I was looking something up in the office on my computer and one of the clerks came to the door and said, "Um. I don't want to be a tattle tale but there is a girl listening to music and clipping her nails out there and it is grossing me out." Since I am the Voice of Reason, I immediately went out and tapped on the table to get the attention of the perpetrator. Apparently she was very engrossed in what she was doing because I had to rap my knuckles not once or twice but THRICE before she acknowledged I was there.

With a heavy sigh she looked up at me and removed one headphone from her ear to her forehead and said annoyedly, "Yes?"

"I need to talk to you in the hallway please," I told her because if you remember from previous posts, one of the cardinal rules of prison librarianship is Don't Confront People About Things When They Have an Audience.

She spent a good 30 seconds wiping the nail clippings from her pants into her hand (at least it wasn't to the floor) and then she followed me out to the hallway where I informed her that nail clippers are not allowed in the library and doing personal hygiene is frowned upon in that setting and then I gave her the option to stay and I would send the nails clippers to Property or she could go back to her unit and lose the rest of her library time. Due to the fact that one has to work at least 3 days on prison pay to afford nail clippers, she elected to do the latter and returned to her unit, surprisingly with no attitude. Because she was compliant, I just gave her a verbal warning which should be enough to keep her from doing it again.

Now, on the positive side, I am glad that patrons feel so comfortable in the library, but whether you are clipping nails, threading eyebrows, or popping zits, there are just some places you don't do certain things and the library is one of them.

Until next time!

Changes in Prison

In an environment that thrives on consistency and repetition, anything out of the ordinary is bound to send shock waves throughout the entire system. A few years ago I dyed my hair brown and you would have thought I did something way more terrible from the reactions I got. EVERYONE hated it and felt like it was their job to tell me so, but I just laughed it off because a.) I didn't do it for them, b.) I liked it and that's all that matters and c.) I'm not there to impress anyone. But what was really hilarious is that my boss at the time also had brown hair and people used to say "Oh, the blonde librarian told us that/said we could do that" and after neither of us was the blonde one they became very consternated.

So, fast forward to the present day and a little background: every day at work I wear my work outfit. It is the same every day, down to my items on my belt (radio, keys, pepper spray) and my car key that I hang from my belt loop with a carabeaner (spelling?) so I never lose it because if you read this blog you know how stressful it is to even THINK about losing keys in prison. So, I thought for sure the first day I had my brand new key of my shiny new car on my belt loop, SURELY I would have to fend off multiple comments about my new key. But so far, nothing. Not one single comment or sideways glance while they try and estimate if they will get in trouble for asking. Veritable. Crickets.

So what does this mean? Well my theories are that because I have some other minor keys on the ring, everyone just looks at those and assumes it's key business as usual. It could also be that they are so busy with their own other life drama that they have no time for changes in the library at the moment. My final idea, and this is the one I would like it to be, is that I have finally, after five long years, gotten to the point where they know my answer will be "I don't talk about my personal life at work" and they respect me enough to not even try and bring it up. It's unlikely that that's the reason, but one can always hope.

Until next time!